From meatballs to morning lines, Tulsa welcomes its first IKEA

More than 700 shoppers flooded through the doors of Oklahoma’s first IKEA Friday morning, marking the end of a two-year campaign to bring the Swedish retailer to Tulsa. 

By 8:30 a.m., hundreds lined up outside the store at 7309 S. Olympia Ave. in the Tulsa Hills shopping plaza. Employees handed out coffee, shopping bags and plushies for kids. Tulsa Peoples’ Orchestra was on hand with a live performance.  

“Every time IKEA comes up, it’s just a little bit different,” Mayor Monroe Nichols said during the ribbon cutting ceremony. “I don’t know if it’s the furniture, I don’t know if it’s the meatballs, but it’s something.” 

A wait that began before dawn

Jake Landry, a 37-year-old University of Tulsa law student, and his stepmom, 70-year-old retiree Tina Rhinehart, arrived at IKEA’s parking lot at 3:45 a.m. 

They were the first in line more than six hours before the official grand opening. 

“It seems really silly to do something like this, but people line up for Black Friday,” Landry said. “People line up for all sorts of things, and people line up for iPhone releases and those happen every year. This will be a one-time thing, and that’s kind of cool.” 

Before the opening, Landry had to travel more than four hours to either Kansas or Dallas to shop at IKEA. He described himself as someone who enjoys piecing things together and said the store’s products are perfect to help modify living spaces. 

The pair received a $500 gift card for being first in line. The next 73 people behind them were given gift cards ranging from $5 to $1,000. 

Jocelyn Quinones, 23, and her brother Junior, 19, passed the time by playing mobile games on their tablet. 

They drove in from Oklahoma City. For Quinones, coming to Tulsa is a rarity. She only stops by about once every three years, but she expects that to change. 

“I feel like (I’ll come) maybe a few times a year, honestly, because it’s only an hour,” she said. “It’s really not bad compared to three, because the other one in Dallas is three hours away.” 

The topic of driving and worsening traffic conditions has concerned a few residents in the lead-up to the grand opening, mainly near the intersection of 81st Street and South Olympia Avenue. 

But Walter Echeverria, a 36-year-old pastor at Tulsa’s Eastland Baptist Church who found himself at the back of the line, said more traffic is a natural sign of growth. 

“It’s part of a city,” Echeverria, a Los Angeles native who has lived in Tulsa for six years, told The Eagle. “I know what it is in Los Angeles. I know when things grow, part of it is traffic and just knowing how to get around, using side streets, using back roads, knowing how to drive.” 

Inside the store

After entering, employees greeted customers with cheers and celebratory thundersticks. 

“It felt like I was on the red carpet,” Brandon Cole, a 31-year-old police officer, said. “Like I was in a famous movie or something.” 

Families found themselves packed in between store sections like sardines. Children jumped onto some of the display beds while their parents inspected some of the 5,000 products on display.

One customer, dawning two Swedish flags in her ponytail, was Alexandra Bergman, a Swedish native who has been living in Tulsa for 30 years. She said she’s been advocating for an IKEA location since she moved here. 

“I’m impressed. I was a little disappointed at first when I heard it was going to be the small box size store, which I’ve never been to before,” she said. “But I feel like just walking through all these displays, it’s not really any different than what you experience in a big city with a bigger IKEA.”

IKEA officials told The Eagle the 51,000-square-foot store can hold up to 1,200 people at one time.

One of the most popular sections of the store was the kitchen area. Prior to opening, some residents feared the smaller footprint meant they’d had to forgo the famous meatballs. But fortunately for many people’s taste buds, that’s not the case. 

As the ribbon cutting wound down, Nichols took a moment to reflect on the work it took to attract the global retailer. 

In 2024, over 60 Tulsans traveled on a charter bus to the Frisco, Texas location as part of a campaign to bring IKEA to the city. The initiative featured an IKEA-inspired pop-up restaurant called Tulsmå, a public art installation and an open letter. Earlier this year, the city approved a $2.5 million incentive package to attract the store.

For some, the arrival of the world’s largest furniture brand is a sign that the city is getting closer to becoming a major city on the national stage. But others think that takes away from what Tulsa already has to offer. 

“I think Tulsa has always had a really cool charm, and a lot of people that are local kind of overlook that because it’s the things that they’re used to,” Landry, the TU law student, said. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily about attracting new retailers, but it’s just recognizing what Tulsa kind of already had and being able to build on that.” 

IKEA’s regular store hours will be Monday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Ismael Lele is a Report for America corps member and writes about business in Tulsa for The Oklahoma Eagle. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting this link.